Category Archives: Poetry

The Octave of the Immaculate Heart

Festival, History, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events
Immaculate Heart of Mary with Doves and Lace –8.5x11" based on a ...

POD (Poem Of the day)

~Searching for the Peace Path
Leading to the Queen of Heaven
Gathering hot iron
From the falling stars along the way
Feeding the Tree of Life
With redeemed Sulphur
To forge the sword of Michael…
My heart beating in Immaculate rhythm
I reach for The Anointed One
In these Dog-Days
Tying the key to the kite
In the gathering
clouds…
~hag

Queen of Heaven - Wikipedia
Diego Velázquez

Today we meet the Octave of the Assumption: Tradition celebrates two main feasts of Mary in August. The first is the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on August 15, & the second is the Feast of the Queenship of Mary on August 22 (also known as The feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary)

The feast of the Assumption has been celebrated since the 5th or 6th century & for many years its festival was extended by an octave.

Our ancestors celebrated all major feasts for eight days = for an octave. Essentially the same liturgy was said, using the same liturgical texts each day of the octave.

The eighth day of the octave was seen as a heightened experience, honoring the spiritual themes of the feast for the last time. For this reason a complimentary feast was often instituted on this eighth day.

STEPHEN B WHATLEY

When it came to the Assumption, it had an octave celebration for many centuries. Then on May 4, 1944, Pope Pius XII established the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on August 22, the octave day of the feast of the Assumption. He did this so that by her intercession may be obtained “peace among nations, the love of purity and the practice of virtue.”

However, Pope Paul VI decided to switch the feasts of the Immaculate Heart and the Queenship of Mary. The feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was joined to the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (celebrated on the Saturday following the feast of the Sacred Heart, typically around the Summer Solstice June 20) and the I’m not one to give authority to Papal Bulls but when it comes to the Mary’s I always seek to bring forth the essence of the Divine Feminine from out the Matrix… was moved to August 22. Mary becomes the “Queen of Heaven.” The power of the Queenship of Mary is that she is a “Queen of Peace.”

Queen of Peace, an art print by Qistina Khalidah - INPRNT
Qistina Khalidah

I’m not one to give much authority to Papal Bulls, but when it comes to the ‘Mary’s’ I always seek to bring forth the essence of the Divine Feminine from out the Matrix…

“May all recognize more clearly and venerate more devoutly the merciful and maternal sway of the Mother of God. May this feast help to preserve, strengthen and prolong that peace among nations which daily is almost destroyed by recurring crises. Is she not a rainbow in the clouds reaching towards God, the pledge of a covenant of peace?”

Mary Queen of Peace | Villanova University

After her Assumption into Heaven, Mary is Queen of Heaven, right there beside her Son, The Being of Love, listening to our prayers. She is the true “Queen of Peace,” who can help us turn the tide of war & conflict thru her powerful intercession.

Pietro Annigoni: Immaculate Heart of Mary — Art+Christianity
Pietro Annigoni

May we strive to make our hearts Immaculate to share the true Crown of our Queen & become a beacon of Love & peace in our world.  

~hag

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

~Elizabeth Wang

“The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history… It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.” ~Rachel Carson

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary & the Queenship of Mary– a celestial follow-up to the Assumption, now celebrated on the octave day of that feast

392 –Birthday of Eugenius elected – the last Roman Emperor to support polytheism

Image result for Odoacer a soldier became the first King of Italy

476 – Birthday of Odoacer a soldier became the first King of Italy. His reign is commonly seen as marking the end of the Western Roman Empire

565 –Birthday of  Columbaa, Christian saint -one of the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland’ reports seeing a monster in Loch Ness, Scotland

Image result for Pope Gregory IX, established the Papal Inquisition

1241 – Deathday of Pope Gregory IX, established the Papal Inquisition

Image result for 1849 – The first air raid in history. Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice

1849 – The first air raid in history. Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice

Image result for first geneva convention 1864

1864 – Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention

1862 – Birthday of Claude Debussy

1902 – Cadillac Motor Company is founded

1902 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President to ride in an automobile

Image result for Rudolf Steiner’s 4th Mystery Drama: The Souls’ Awakening

1913 – 1st performance of Rudolf Steiner’s 4th Mystery Drama: The Souls’ Awakening

Image result for 1932 – The BBC begins television broadcasting using John Logie Baird’s system

1932 – The BBC begins television broadcasting using John Logie Baird’s system

1941 – World War II: German troops begin the Siege of Leningrad

1944 – World War II: Holocaust of Kedros in Crete by German force

Image result for Francis Delaisi, French social economist

*1947 – Deathday of Francis Delaisi, French social economist spoken of by Rudolf Steiner in ‘Fall of the Spirits of Darkness’ Lecture 14 Dornach, 28 October 1917

“For once, therefore, a man woke up and saw that what mattered was not to proclaim democracy but to see the full reality, not to follow slogans, but to see things as they are. This would be particularly important today, for people would then realize that the events which reign with such blood and terror over the whole of humanity are guided and directed from just a few centres. People will never realize this if they persist in the delusion that nation is fighting nation, and allow the European and American Press to lull them to sleep over the kinds of relations that are said to exist between nations. Everything said about antagonism and opposition between nations only exists to cast a veil over the true reasons. For we shall never arrive at the real truth if we feed on words in order to explain these events, but only if we point to actual people. The problem is that this tends to be unpalatable today. And the man who woke up and wrote these statements in 1910 also presented some highly unwelcome accounts in his book. He produced a list of fifty-five individuals who are the real rulers and exploiters of France. The list can be found in Francis Delaisi’s La Democratie et les Financiers, written in 1910; the same man has also written La Guerre qui vient, a book which has become famous. In his La Democratie et les Financiers you will find statements of fundamental significance. There you have someone who has woken up to reality. The book contains impulses which allow one to see through much of what we should see through today, and also to cut through much of the fog which is made to wash over human brains today. Here again, we must resolve to look to reality.

The book has, of course, been ignored. It does, however, raise issues which should be raised all over the world today, for they would teach people much about the reality which others intend to bury under all their declamations on democracy and autocracy and whatever the slogans may be.” ~Rudolf Steiner

Image result for 1961 – Ida Siekmann dies attempting to cross the Berlin Wall

1961 – Ida Siekmann dies attempting to cross the Berlin Wall

1962 – The OAS attempts to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle

Image result for 1971 – J. Edgar Hoover & John Mitchell announce the arrest of 20 of the Camden 28, a group of “Catholic left”

1971 – J. Edgar Hoover & John Mitchell announce the arrest of 20 of the Camden 28, a group of “Christian leftists” anti-Vietnam War activists.

2006 – Russian passenger plane crashes over eastern Ukraine, killing all 170 people on board

Saturday 23 September 2023

Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire

*Autumnal Equinox

*Yom Kippur

*Michaelmas Festival

6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

30 September 2023 – Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day

for more info.

Vidar = Christ Bearer

Community, Festival, History, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events

Greetings Friends – There is a powerful magic in the August air. The harvest is unfolding. Cosmic Iron is scintillating in our blood – seeding our souls for Michaelmas.

Last year on this date 20 August, a group of us met in the Upper Room of the Rudolf Steiner Branch, Chicago, to explore the idea of co-creating a New Festival called Vidarmas – as a gateway & compliment to Michaelmas – to acknowledge this young Archangel as the inspiring Being of Community Life, connected with pure ether forces – & in connection to our need to experience ‘The Etheric Christ‘ which is our task in this age.

Big thanks to Rob Treiste for this cool chart

The Four Ethers & the Four Elements overlap to create the seven layers of the Physical-Etheric World, & the 7-fold human being. To begin to understand this gives us insight into our task with Vidar.

I remember looking into Norse mythology thru the lens of Spiritual Science when my girl was in 4th grade at the Chicago Waldorf School. Rudolf Steiner tells us that Wotan or Odin was an Archangelic being, who later appeared as Siddhārtha carrying on the mission of Odin to become the Gautama-Buddha.

‘Woden and the Grail‘:

And Odin hung for nine days
from the Earth’s One Tree,
his eye gouged for wisdom gained,
a loss so he could see.

He waited long upon this throne
as Godlike days passed.
For the future he’d wait to see;
how to make his time last.

The One-God was coming
for this was surely told
but how to manage tomorrow
for the long lost Gods of old.

His wolves, and horse, and crows
they stood and gathered near
looking long for his wisdom
against the lives they held so dear.

Then Odin smiled upon the ninth day
for the answer there did lie
within the Earthen Tree
he had helped himself to tie.

Lowered now to the ground,
sodden by his many tears,
he drew nigh his greatest friends
those who waited the many years.

Turning to the tree he drew
deep from within its heart
a living chalice made of wood
from which to make a start.

Come my friends gather round
and for the past do not wail
as we hold the future steady now
within this Earthen Holy Grail.

~Mac Andrew

Javier Dominguez

Vidar, unseated by Loki, becomes the “Silent Aesir” – the only one to survive Ragnarok, conquering the Fenrris Wolf who wants to devour the Sun.

Important to remember that every human being has a guardian angel; & that before Siddhārtha became the Buddha he had one too. When he achieved Buddhahood, his angel was ‘freed’ – Able to ascend to a higher rank.

After much time as the “Silent Aesir”, this angel – went on to work with the Nathan Soul & with the Christ thru the pre-earthly deeds etc…(You can read about this angel working at the ‘Turning Point of Time’ in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 2 & in Matthew 1:18–25.)

Robert Paulson

Rudolf Steiner connects Buddha’s angel with Vidar.

So we can see that Vidar is linked, not only to what we hear about him thru mythology, but also to Buddhism, & to the ‘Nathan Soul’ – that pure paradisiacal ‘Sister Soul of Adam’ that did not go thru the fall from paradise – but was held back in the Mother-lodge to be able assist the mission of Christ.

Steiner speaks about the “Nirmanakaya of the Buddha” with all its “Youthful forces” as an intermigling with the astral body of the Nathan Jesus when he was 12. These Youthful forces are a characteristic of Vidar & his work with the formative forces of the etheric.

Paulo Veronesse

Thru Spiritual Science we learn it is Vidar, who comes to the aid of the Christ Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, fortifing his etheric body when the Ahrimanic death forces were threatening to kill the physical body of Jesus before Christ’s deed on Golgotha was completed. “An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him”. (Luke 22-43)

To put things into perspective we can think how everything changes; growth/transformation – embraces all beings – evolution is working not only in humanity but in the ‘gods’. 

When the Archangel Michael got promoted to Archai, the being known as Vidar, who was once associated with the Northern Mysteries, stepped into Michael’s position as ruling Archangel of the Sun, becoming Universal in his service, cosmopolitan like Michael.

According to Rudolf Steiner Vidar, could have become an Archangel long before that, but he took the path of renunciation, of silence – listening & waiting – building up forces, until 1879 – only then did Vidar take the place vacated by Michael, to work specifically with the Christ during the 2nd crucifixion in the etheric.

The silent Aesir now speaks. 

Vidar’s task is essential for our present age; he creates the etheric sheath for the Being of Christ, so that we can develop a new clairvoyance to perceive & receive this Etheric Christ.

Vidar wants to work with us to achieve the necessary formative forces needed to conquer the many Ahrimanic & Luciferic influences that plague us today – So that we can attain a level of super-sensible acuity to work with Christ in our own etheric bodies.

Vidar will guide us so that we too can become Christ bearers – creating CHRISTOPHOROS ( Χριστόφορος ) in us.

Vidar was with us in the Michael School & the super-sensibile Cultus, & he helps us now – & into the future – to put these lessons into practice with discernment; making us ready to achieve access to all the ethers: warmth, light, sound, life. To consciously employ them – which will help us purify our astral body & transform our etheric body.

We will need these tools to meet the mystery of evil.

Elizabeth Wang

In our striving to harmonize our astral & etheric currents, we create new spiritual organs, described by Steiner in ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’ as an ‘etheric lattice’. This gives us a reflective apparatus for our pure thinking – allowing our thoughts to press or imprint directly into our ether body – creating an etheric bridge to the Christ – giving us access to cosmic memory & the gifts from the 5th sacrifice of Christ ie. the suffocation in the etheric attended by Vidar & the Nathan Soul – this sacrifice was the catalyst for our new clairvoyance!

I keep thinking: How can we, in everyday practical terms, work with Vidar as Guardian of the etheric forces which can brings us together in our various groups striving to live into the Spiritual Science of Christ-Sophia? 

We have to be aware that elemental beings inhabit the etheric forms we create – consciously with Love & Light – or unconsciously thru what is adversarial in us…Let us call in the forces of Sophia-Michael-Vidar to fill the etheric with Christic Wisdom.

Vidar as an Archangel for our time speaks with the language of Whitsun – Pentecost – the fires of purification & purpose. And thru the Holy Spirit connected to Anthroposophia we can work with Vidar in our search for the Holy Grail, when we ask the Parzival question of each other, in a true mood of service & enthusiasm, so that when we are ripe we can become co-creators of a new Universe.   

Druidic ‘gravestone’ of Vidar found in Niederdollendorf near Colonge

I have gleaned many insights from my work with Sergei Prokofieff’s indications encapsulating the Spiritual Science of Rudolf Steiner in his amazing book: “The Cycle of the year as a Path of Initiation Leading to an Experience of the Christ Being, An Esoteric Study of the Festivals” – the 12th & final chapter on: “The Modern Mysteries of the Etheric Christ” expounding on “The Vidar Mystery”.

a few Highlights:
“This individuality of Wotan or Odin (who Steiner calls an Archangel) is the same as the one who later appeared with the same mission under the name Buddha”. (GA105 August 14 1908)

“When the Buddha appeared to the shepherds in the picture of the ‘heavenly host’, he was not in a physical body but in an astral body. He had assumed a body in which he could still send his influences to the Earth….This body is called a Nirmanakaya’. ” (GA 114, 17 September 1909)

THE MISSION OF FOLK-SOULS, GA 121,, Lecture XI, 17 June 1910, Christiania – Is a powerful study:

“All these details which are set forth in the ‘Twilight of the Gods’, correspond with that which is to appear to humankind in a newer etheric vision, which in reality refers to the future. The Fenris Wolf will still remain. Oh, there is a deep, deep truth concealed in this account of the Fenris Wolf remaining behind in conflict with Odin. In the near future of humankind there will be no danger so great as the tendency to remain satisfied with the old clairvoyance, — instead of developing the new by means of new forces — the danger that humanity might be tempted to remain satisfied with what the old astral clairvoyance of primal ages could give, namely, soul-pictures such as that of the Fenris Wolf. It would also be a severe trial for that which has to grow up in the domain of Anthroposophy, if in that, the tendency towards all sorts of confused, chaotic clairvoyance should arise…

Something very different must come in. And what that is, is, however, known to Celtic-Germanic-Norse mythology — it is well aware of its existence. It knows, that there exists the etheric form in which will embody that which we shall once again see as the etheric form of Christ. And this alone will succeed in driving out the confused clairvoyant power which would bewilder humankind…Vidar, who has kept silence all the time, will overcome the Fenris Wolf. That also is told us in the ‘Twilight of the Gods’.

Anyone who recognizes the importance of Vidar and feels him in their soul, will find that beginning in the twentieth century the capacity can again be given to humanity with which to see Christ.

Vidar, who belongs to us all, will again stand before the human being. Vidar was kept secret in the Mysteries and secret Schools as a god who would receive his mission only in the future.”

We had lively discussions throughout the evening. Then to get us up on our feet to vibrate from our lips & lungs, Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer of The Musical initiative: Velsum: Voices of Ancient Futurism brought us a song they wrote for the occasion.

Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Come upon us.
Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Give us your trust.

Let us meet you in the threshold.
Let us know you in the Light.
Let us carry forth your banner
In selfless might!

Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Come upon us.
Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Give us your trust.

In the flowing of the spirit
From the Northern sickle moon,
We will harvest your new impulse
In joyous truth!

Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Come upon us.
Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Give us your trust.

Lucien & Ultra invited us to co-write a 3rd verse; so folks popcorned ideas, & we will work more with that for our next gathering…

Here are the links to the recordings of the song they taught us.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QLvn4bSTEbjSptZe6

https://photos.app.goo.gl/AGbartxJFFJmNvTf9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/cc8YQTQHZeyGBsaL7

Lucien suggested we end by doing a group poem, each going around saying 1 word. Here is what came forth from our collective efforts for our closing verse: “Speak from the light wherein resolution leads to our hearts fulfillment of the Etheric Christ with courage.”

Vidar at the gates of Shambala by Daniel Ospina

Daniel Ospina the artist of this amazing painting held a meeting at the same time in Ireland where they also read the lecture. The invitation was taken up by other branches including one in Colombia South America. If you dear reader have also taken up this impulse to know Vidar, please share your insights. Let’s keep this knowing going.

Many Thanks to Susan Overhauser, who is one of the brilliant facility members for our AAP training who brought alive for us ‘Vidar as a Guide in the Etheric’. Susan is bringing her research to present at a Conference at the Goetheanum this month!

May the Practicum which we have began into this new Festival we are calling Vidarmas, continue to thrive.

~hag

20 August 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Bella Luna emerging from the Underworld is dancing with the sheath of wheat held by Spica the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
LAMMASTIDE IV
Transition from Summer to Autumn
The Nemesis Of The Lower Self
v20
So I begin to feel my being, I,
who far from world existence
would perish, I, who self-confined,
evolving only on its own ground,
must in itself surender… die.

We must take up the goal of higher self-development.
We must willingly give up what is holding us back,
not a Luciferic, unconscious, sacrifice, but a rise
in freedom to a new sense of self and purpose.
(a message derived from Eloise Krivosheia
in anthroposophyla.org – verse 20).
The mirror verse involves an Ahrimanic temptation.

ALL HALLOWTIDE III
Transition from Autumn to Winter
World Nemesis… or Resurrection?
v33
And so I come to feel the world,
which left without my soul’s communion
would be just frosty, empty life,
and powerless to resurrect in souls,
arise anew in human self-creation,
could in itself alone find only death.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

Saturday 23 September 2023

Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire

*Autumnal Equinox

*Yom Kippur

*Michaelmas Festival

6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

30 September 2023 – Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day

for more info.

Ptolemaic

Celestial Event, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events

~New Moon Maiden
Innocent scythe of alteration
Teach us to value our hidden gestation
Even as you move into the light
Let us give voice
To what is secret
Let us make visible
What is occult
Let us make familiar
What has been disowned
Blessed be the darkness
For out of it
We shall make ourselves
whole
~hag

In this Dark of the Moon time, when Bella Luna is taking up the mysteries of the Underworld. And Venus (which Steiner calls ‘Occult or Ptolemaic Mercury’ – I wrote about this here) after having been the Evening Star all Spring & Summer is making passage between Earth & the Sun – Veiled for now by Light. After 21 August this Being so close to Earth & Sun returns again to the East before dawn – to shine as the Morning Star.

~Howen/ Upsplash

A few days ago, Hideo Nishimura of Kakegawa, Japan, was photographing the night when he captured a new comet! – Comet C/2023 P1 Nishimura – currently moving in front of the constellation Gemini the Twins, low in the dawn sky. The comet was hiding in the sun’s glare before Nishimura picked it up. And, by next month, it might be bright enough to see with the unaided eye!

~Eddie Irizarry 

Look for the new comet on 3 September (CG’s B-Day) 2023, some 45 minutes before sunrise, appearing with Venus (Occult Mercury) as Morning Star.

Yes – every year at this time the Cosmic Iron enters Earth’s atmosphere, following the rhythms of the cosmos – bringing the forces harnessed in the metal sacred to the planet Mars, & the Being Michael. But why is that? What’s the reason behind this charming sky show that urges us to make wishes? And what does all this have to do with iron?

Interior of Chiesa dei Gesuiti (Venice) – left nave – The Martyrdom of St Lawrence – Titian

To add to the lore, the August meteor showers are also called the “Lacrime di San Lorenzo”—St. Lawrence’s tears – the last of the seven deacons of Rome to die, martyred in August 258 AD, during the persecution of the emperor Valerian.

When he was summoned before the executioners, Lawrence was ordered to bring all the wealth of the Church with him. He showed up with a handful of crippled, poor, & sick people, & when questioned, replied that “These are the true wealth of the Church.” He was immediately sent to his death, being cooked alive on a ‘gridiron’.

Legend has it that his last words were a quip to his killers: “Turn me over, I’m done on this side!”

Italian lore also holds that the fiery bits of debris seen during a meteor shower are representative of the coals that killed St. Lawrence. 

After that, people began calling the August meteors the “The tears of St. Lawrence,” even though the celestial phenomenon pre-dates the Saint, being associated with Perseus, & in our time now with the Mighty Archai Michael. These correspondences are very interesting, finding a valid explanation in the results of a spiritual-scientific investigation.

According to Anthroposophy in Summer a specific process takes place in the human organism, as light & heat grow stronger & more potent. This is a sulphurising process. From a spiritual perspective human beings start shining ‘like glow-worms’ surrounded by a yellow-bluish “sulphur” flame. This flame is associated with the spiritual beings of ‘fallen light’ which want to take advantage of human freedom for their purposes.

“From the standpoint of the cosmos this is actually a majestically beautiful sight, for it is in this glorious astral light that human beings shine out into the cosmos during the ‘Dog Days of Summer’, but at the same time it gives occasion for the Ahrimanic power to draw near to humanity. For this adversarial power is very closely related to the sulphurising process in the human organism.

We can see how, on the one hand, the human being shines out into the cosmos in the St. John’s light, & on the other, how the dragon-like serpent-form of Ahriman winds its way among the human beings shining in the astral light & tries to ensnare & curtail us, to draw us down into the realm of half-conscious sleep & illusion”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons & the Archangels

This process of subtle combustion in the human organism causes what comes so natural in Summer – a dream-like state where human instincts arise, gaining power over the forces of consciousness & awareness. Who hasn’t experienced this during summer? And it’s not for nothing, it is important to have that outbreath to come in contact with the cosmic reaches.

But we need to understand that from this perspective the ahrimanic forces are not interested in awakening clairvoyance in humanity. That would be an old form of clairvoyance, anyway. All they want, is to control human beings – fooling us thru our own lower instincts.

When this process of expansion comes to its peak at the Summer Solstice—we must start to come back down to earth or there is a danger we fall victim to the Luciferic influences that would draw us away from life. But the wisdom of the cosmos gives human beings the antidote. The balancing impulse to counter the forces of sulphur rising from the ground, is the Cosmic Iron.

Patti Vennery

“And when in high summer, from a particular constellation, meteors fall in great showers of cosmic iron, then this cosmic iron, which carries an enormously powerful healing force, is the weapon which the gods bring to bear against Ahriman, as dragon-like he tries to coil round the shining forms of men.

The force which falls on the earth in the meteoric iron is indeed a cosmic force whereby the higher gods endeavour to gain a victory over the Ahrimanic powers, when autumn comes on. And this majestic display in cosmic space, when the August meteor showers stream down into the human shining in the astral light, has its counterpart — so gentle and apparently so small — in a change that occurs in the human blood.

This human blood, which is in truth not such a material thing as present-day science imagines, but is permeated throughout by impulses from soul and spirit, is rayed through by the force which is carried as iron into the blood and wages war there on anxiety, fear and hate.

The processes which are set going in every blood-corpuscle when the force of iron shoots into it are the same, on a minute human scale, as those which take place when meteors fall in a shining stream through the air. This permeation of human blood by the anxiety-dispelling force of iron is a meteoric activity. The effect of the raying in of the iron is to drive fear and anxiety out of the blood”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons & the Archangels

From this perspective we can contemplate the amazing show of the meteor showers which go on into September as we make our way toward Michaelmas. We can look at them knowing that the forces of the cosmos are at work to help us.

Fear & anxiety are two adversarial forces, that have been ensnaring us all. So this makes having an awareness of the meteor showers even more important – worthy of contemplation & active participation.

May the Cosmic Iron of the gods be with you, to defeat all the inner & outer obstacles that stand in your way.

~hag

Brice Menkelsohn

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

Saturday 23 September 2023

Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire

*Autumnal Equinox

*Yom Kippur

*Michaelmas Festival

6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

30 September 2023 – Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day

for more info.

Kite-Song

Biography, Calendar of the Soul, Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Community, History, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Event

For Ultra-Violet Archer on the eve of your furthering:

Soar like an epic melody
My beloved kite-song –
Eternal rays
Like the trailing hair of a comet
Flowing forth from your Sun-Self
To give Hope to the world.
Shine with Faith
As a flame shines from the up-right wick
Trimmed & oiled – Christ fueled
Sending darkness into a taming conversion
Your Cosmic Memory undulating
With senses pressed
Like scent into temple drapery,
A liquid seal ever forming from molten beeswax,
A labyrinth of flowers spicing the air,
The crunch of apple,
The slow cloudage of Autumn’s promise,
As the Seasons spin –
& you
Snug as an acorn in the cup-crown of your making
A sweet sip of light
Vibrating inner warmth
On your honeyed lips.
Your soul a red thread between spirits
Gold dust between stars
A silky sash – The endless vine –
My own heart’s root
Whispering/Shouting/Singing: Love is
Who you are.

~XOXmom

“…See the sun-drenched vine, with its juice spiritualized to etheric sunlight! It is a picture of the purification & fermentation process of the “I”. It shows you how drives can be transformed when they are purified thru life’s bitter crisis, flowering as the wisdom of age.

Your “I” bears the Queenly (Kingly) power within itself thru which you can transform all that is lower within you & raise it to the heights. Without these drives you would not be a full human being, but you must tame & refine them in the crucible of the royal power of the “I”.

Then they will bear for you the loveliest fruits which will ripen in the autumn of life to become saturated with the wisdom of the divine.

You extend your soul beyond itself when you compassionately share in all that is living in humanity. You open your Self to the world. For being human means: Building the Royal power of the “I” by sharing responsibility for all that is human!

Then the thought that: “I am a member of all humankind & I am co-responsible for all that happens” is no longer foreign to you. With such an attitude the human being’s whole way of thinking gradually changes…”  ~Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of Higher Worlds

13 August 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars:” If you extend your Perseid watch to the beginning of dawn Sunday the 13th, the waning crescent Moon will cap the night by forming a triangle with Castor and Pollux low in the east-northeast. ~skytelescope

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
LAMMASTIDE III – Assumption of the Virgin Mary (Tuesday)
To Waken Self With Memory
v19
Mysteriously to sheathe
the new conceived with memory
be now my striving’s further aim
that strengthening it shall awake
my inner power to become
my real self.

ADVENT I
The Newly Risen Self
v34
Mysteriously to feel
old treasure resurrecting in me
with newly risen sense of who I am
shall rouse a tide of cosmic forces
that pouring into my endeavour for the world
will in becoming print me into that which Is.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“Study the past if you would define the future.”  ~Confucius

303 – St. Cassian of Imola, Patron Saint of Teachers, martyred during the reign of Julian the Apostate

1699 – Deathday of Marco d’Aviano, Capuchin monk. When he gave his blessing to a nun, bedridden for some 13 years, she was miraculously healed. The news spread far & wide, among those who sought his help was Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, whose wife had been unable to conceive a male heir. From 1680 to the end of his life, Marco d’Aviano became a close confidant & adviser to him. As the danger of war with the Ottoman Turks grew near, Marco d’Aviano played a crucial role in resolving disputes, restoring unity, & energizing the armies of the Holy League

1792 – King Louis XVI of France is formally arrested by the National Tribunal, & declared an enemy of the people

1818 – Birthday of Lucy Stone a prominent American orator, abolitionist, & suffragist, known for using her maiden name after marriage. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women’s rights & against slavery at a time when women were discouraged & prevented from public speaking

1831 – Nat Turner witnesses a solar eclipse which caused the sky to appear a blue-green color, which he envisioned as a black man’s hand reaching over the sun. Eight days later he & 70 other slaves kill between 55-65 whites in Southampton County, Virginia

1860 – Birthday of Annie Oakley

1868 – A massive earthquake near Arica, Peru, causes an estimated 25,000 casualties, & the subsequent tsunami causes considerable damage as far away as Hawaii & New Zealand

1876 – The premiere of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the recently completed Bayreuth Festspielhaus

ALFRED HITCHCOCK -- Pictured: Alfred Hitchcock -- Photo by: NBCU Photo Bank **FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY AND CANNOT BE ALTERED, ARCHIVED OR RESOLD. NO TABLOID USAGE WORLDWIDE. SPECIFIC CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR COMMERCIAL OR PROMOTIONAL USE. CONTACT YOUR NBCU REPRESENTATIVE FOR FURTHER INFORMATION**

1899 – Birthday of Alfred Hitchcock

vladinir Solovyov

1900 – Deathday of Vladimir Soloviev, a Russian philosopher, theologian, poet, pamphleteer & literary critic. It is widely held that Solovyov was one of the sources for Dostoyevsky’s characters in The Brothers Karamazov. Solovyov’s influence can also be seen in the writings of the Symbolist & Neo-Idealist writers of the later Russian Soviet era. His book The Meaning of Love can be seen as one of the philosophical sources of Leo Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata. It was also the work in which he introduced the concept of ‘syzygy’, to denote ‘close union’. He influenced the religious philosophy of many including the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, (see War, Progress, and the End of History: Three Conversations, Including a Short Story of the Anti-Christ. Reprinted 1990 by Lindisfarne Books) Steiner speaks of Solovyov’s former incarnation as a visionary nun in the Middle Ages in his Karmic relationships Vol. 4 #8

1910 – Deathday of Florence Nightingale

Curative ed

1914 – The beginning of Rudolf Steiner’s Curative Education Course “For our Friends”

1926 – Birthday of Fidel Castro

1942 – Walt Disney’s fifth full-length animated film, Bambi, was released to theaters

1946 – Deathday of H. G. Wells

1961 – the Berlin Wall is erected

International Lefthanders Day

~Dali

Sunday 13 August 2023 – Prep-Stir – Potluck – Bonfire –

*To celebrate The 2nd Harvest = Lammas / Lughnasdh

*The Perseid Meteor Showers, Venus (occult Mercury) /Sun Conjunction, Sirus Rising

*The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

*And a bon voyage Blessing for Ultra-Violet Archer

7 – 9 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

“How can I do the Good?” part 2

Biography, Birth / Death Days, History, Insight, Poetry

Greetings friends & welcome to this attempt to digest & explore my experiences at “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia” Conference. Here is part 1 – an overview around ‘the summer of 1923 in Penmaenmawr, when Ita Wegman asked Rudolf Steiner if there could be a path for the mysteries to come into medicine again in our age’.

Please remember these reflections are only my personal impressions, a mixture of considerations gleaned from our esteemed speakers:  Dr.’s Ursula Flatters, James Dyson, & Marion Debus. I am sure every participant takes in what they uniquely need to hear, & hopefully comes away with a new perspective that can be put into practice. So please feel free to add your thoughts as well!

In this incarnation, I have always felt a dis-comfort with being in the body, a sense of well being is not often present. My ‘Life Sense’ is perhaps overly acute, but this has allowed me to experience the Ego Sense – The “I” of the Other – more strongly as well. 

Dis-ease comes from the past –

Something was lost or knocked out of balance within the soul-forces & is seeking a recalibration – It is often a karmic wake- up call – an opportunity for growth thru catharsis.

We can Will to reconnect to our Pre-personal “I” – The “I” of our unborn-ness; & to the original primal forces of the Zodiac living in our physical organs, & the Planetary Beings who formed us.

Many Anthroposophical remedies employ the 7 metals (mineral world) representing the Planets, or treatments using the animal & plant kingdoms potentized to the degree that the physical matter becomes spiritualized, to help us realign with our Divine Blueprint…

Healing comes from the future –

We meet a dis-ease so we can experience transformation & healing. We must let go – to let come. We build up a health plan, an imagination of wholeness, & then release all expectation of the out-come. Patience is needed. Yet it is not a passive waiting, it is an Active, Faith & Trust filled Doing –  Building a Foundation of Study – Biography & Psycho-Spiritual work to Know Thy-Self, an ordered consistent Meditation & daily Practice with Esoteric Exercises…etc…A Cultivation of silent stillness – A sacred space for the light of the Holy Spirit to enter with healing in her wings.

We listen – to receive inspiration. This cultivates that middle, ever present Christic space, between the 2 streams of Time, allowing us to anchor our Higher Self, so that it can receive Intuition for the co-creation of wholeness. This is the mystery of healing – Karma is freed –

The 2 streams of Time meet in the present creating a transcendent 3rd space for Social Relationship – ‘when 2 or 3 are gathered…’

We can imagine our time in the Michael School, & our practicum thru the Cosmic Cultus – & then we must apply this Wisdom in the “I” to “I” Encounter‘ in our time together now.

Are we unconsciously using power over others? Or are we consciously cultivating power with others – supporting & sharing our gifts in communion?

How do we resurrect the ‘Temple Legend’ to redeem the sword of Cain in the future stream of rightful willing – Bestowing a blessing – a unified restoration of the spiritual essence within the Priestly Abel stream…

Do we Will to become our Brother’s Keeper – in the Freedom of Love…?

~hag

~Pamela Matthews

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~My song raps itself around
The belly of the New Sophia
Pulsing in union with The Logos
In rhythm with the Sun streaming
In the All-Space of the Fixed Stars
Forming fresh consonants
Into the aura of imaginations
That inform my soul thru rolling vowels
Of planetary bodies
That sing their echo into my open ear…
~hag

Sergei Olegovitch Prokofieff
16 January 1954 – † 26 July 2014

Today 26 July is the deathday of Sergei O. Prokofieff – the 1st to confirm my connection with the New Isis. And his dedication to the 1st Class Lessons birthed in me a true knowing. He opened the living reality of the ‘New Mysteries’, revealing the relationship of the Christ-Sophia in this Michaelic age, with Rudolf Steiner & Christian Rosenkreutz, which we as human beings are called to explore & develop. “The Cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation – A Esoteric Study of the Festivals” is my Bible – my calling, my life’s work. “The Occult Significance of Forgiveness” changed my life (I am of course still striving here) And the massive work “May Human Beings Hear It” which convinced me to dedicate myself to the Foundation Stone Meditation, pointing up the living reality of the Christmas Conference, which I feel a personal & collective responsibility to fulfill.

My heart spills over with gratitude for this true initiate, this real anthroposopher, this true human being, who continues to be my mentor from across the Threshold.

“Anthroposophia seeks to become a new group-soul for that part of humankind which is united within the General Anthroposophical Society founded by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference of 1923-24, thereby representing a kind of archetype for the whole of future evolution & at the same time initiating that universally human process which Rudolf Steiner described in the following words: ‘When people gather together in voluntary associations, they group themselves around focal points. The feelings that stream together at such a focal point now gives Beings the opportunity to work as a kind of group-soul, though in a completely different sense from the former unconscious group-souls. All previous group-souls were beings who made man unfree. These New Beings, however, are wholly compatible with the freedom & preservation of human individuality’.

Anthroposophia would seek to become the 1st of these Beings in our time. However, whether this is possible depends not on this Being alone, but also on human beings.

Thus by uniting with one another in the General Anthroposophical Society out of a love for Anthroposophia & a wish to serve her as a real, living Being, anthroposophist’s throughout the world have the task of together creating on Earth something akin to an all embracing soul-chalice into which this supersensible Being, the youngest member of the heavenly Sophia, can descend. And this means none other than the beginning of the incarnation of the heavenly Sophia on Earth. (this will come about in the 7th epoch, but of which we must prepare now)

Only from this grandiose perspective can we really understand the inner significance of the deed wrought by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference, a deed which represents the high-point & culmination of the entire 21 year development of the anthroposophical movement (1902-23) – a ‘Turning Point of Time’ – For it signified the birth on Earth of her ego in the sheaths of the General Anthroposophical Society. In this way the foundation was laid, or-one could say-the possibility created, for the further working of Anthroposophia in the midst as a New Group-Soul.” ~Sergei O. Prokofieff, “The Heavenly Sophia and the Being Anthroposophia”

May we take up this task to give birth to Anthroposophia, this Being of Human Wisdom, within ourselves, to serve the world.

~hag

Sergei Olegovitch was the grandson of the composer Sergei Prokofiev. Born in Moscow, he studied fine arts & painting at the Moscow School of Art. He encountered anthroposophy in his youth, & soon made the decision to devote his life to it. Prokofieff, wrote his first book, Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries, while living in Soviet Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was a co-founder of the Anthroposophical Society in Russia. At Easter 2001, he became a member of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland. Prokofieff was a prolific author; at the core of his work is an attempt to develop a deepened understanding for Christianity on the basis of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific research. Prokofieff left us a treasure trove of Works

Thank you dear Sergei for your continued inspiration.  

~hag

26 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Tonight the bright waxing gibbous moon will pass the star with the strange sounding name Zubenelgenubi – the alpha star in Libra the Scales ~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast of Saint Anne, mother of Mary, & grandmother of Jesus according to apocryphal Christian & Islamic tradition.

1856 – Birthday of George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright & critic, Nobel Prize laureate.

1875 – Birthday of Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist & psychotherapist. Jung was also an artist, craftsman & builder as well as a prolific writer. Many of his works were not published until after his death & some are still awaiting publication.

Among the central concepts of analytical psychology is individuation—the lifelong psychological process of differentiation of the self out of each individual’s conscious & unconscious elements. Jung considered it to be the main task of human development. He created some of the best known psychological concepts, including synchronicity, archetypal phenomena, the collective unconscious, the psychological complex, & extraversion / introversion.

When Jung was six months old, tension between his parents was growing. Emilie Jung, his mother was an eccentric & depressed woman; she spent considerable time in her bedroom where she said that spirits visited her at night. Although she was normal during the day, Jung recalled that at night his mother became strange & mysterious. He reported that one night he saw a faintly luminous & indefinite figure coming from her room with a head detached from the neck, floating in the air in front of the body. Jung was a solitary, introverted child.

From childhood, he believed that, like his mother, he had 2 personalities—a modern Swiss citizen & a personality more suited to the 18th century. Personality Number 1″, as he termed it, was a typical schoolboy living in the era of the time. “Personality Number 2” was a dignified, authoritative & influential man from the past. A number of childhood memories made lifelong impressions on him. As a boy, he carved a tiny mannequin into the end of the wooden ruler from his pencil case & placed it inside the case. He added a stone, which he had painted into upper & lower halves, & hid the case in the attic. Periodically, he would return to the mannequin, often bringing tiny sheets of paper with messages inscribed on them in his own secret language. He later reflected that this ceremonial act brought him a feeling of inner peace &security. Years later, he discovered similarities between his personal experience & the practices associated with totems in indigenous cultures, such as the collection of soul-stones near Arlesheim or the tjurungas of Australia. He concluded that his intuitive ceremonial act was an unconscious ritual, which he had practiced in a way that was strikingly similar to those in distant locations which he, as a young boy, knew nothing about. His observations about symbols, archetypes, & the collective unconscious were inspired, in part, by these early experiences combined with his later research.

At the age of 12, shortly before the end of his first year at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Basel, Jung was pushed to the ground by another boy so hard that he momentarily lost consciousness. A thought then came to him—”now you won’t have to go to school anymore.” From then on, whenever he walked to school or began homework, he fainted. He remained at home for the next 6 months until he overheard his father speaking hurriedly to a visitor about the boy’s future ability to support himself. They suspected he had epilepsy. Confronted with the reality of his family’s poverty, he realized the need for academic excellence. He went into his father’s study & began pouring over Latin grammar. He eventually overcame the urge & did not faint again. This event, Jung later recalled, “was when I learned what a neurosis is.”

Jung did not plan to study psychiatry since it was not considered prestigious at the time. But, when looking at a psychiatric textbook, his interest was immediately captured—it combined the biological & the spiritual, exactly what he was searching for.

In 1895 Jung began to study medicine at the University of Basel. Barely a year later in 1896, his father Paul died & left the family near destitute. They were helped out by relatives who also contributed to Jung’s studies.

During his student days, he entertained his contemporaries with the family legend, that his paternal grandfather was the illegitimate son of Wolfgang Goethe & his German great-grandmother, Sophie Ziegler. In later life, he pulled back from this tale, saying only that Sophie was a friend of Goethe’s niece.

I will be away 1-8 August 2023